More Suez Facts

Ship sailing north-looks like sailing in the sand

We kept learning about the Suez canal as we sailed along. The canal is 191km long (120 miles) .  The maximum speed is 13kph (about 8 miles an hour). The fastest passage recorded was 14 1/2 hours. The reason it takes so long, I think, is because ships must go very slowly because the canal is only 24 feet deep. The passage fees range from $15,000 to $600,000 depending on the value of the cargo and the tonnage of the ship. We don't know what our value might be so we don't know what the cost of our transit was.

A typical journey from London to Mumbai was reduced from 12,300 miles via the Horn of Africa to 7,200 miles cutting many days of sailing time. The Suez handles 8% of the world's seaborne cargo and 2% of the world's oil.

We had a helicopter escort that was armed with some sort of missiles. It flew around and around until the sun set. Made us feel safe but also you get the idea of how very important keeping this canal open and flowing is to many, many nations in the world.

Construction began in 1859 and was done essentially by hand, as thousands of Egyptian men shoveled tons of sand to dig the canal. Ten years later on November 17, 1869, the world celebrated the inauguration of the Suez Canal. Three weeks of lavish celebration nearly bankrupted Khedive Isma'll, the successor of Sa'id who was the Egyptian Viceroy who got the project going in the first place.

No expense was spared to make this grand affair run as smoothly as possible. To pay for his debts for the celebration, Isma'll sold most of his shares in the Suez Canal Company to the British. From that point on the canal was managed by a British-French consortium- ushering in the British influence that lasted until 1956 when President Jamal'Abd al-Nassir expo;;ed them from the country.

In principle the British agreed to let any nation use the canal. But in practice, during the two World Wars, they strategically positioned soldiers along the canal and permitted only allied nations to pass. In 1950, because of the Arab-Israeli war, Egypt banned all Israeli vessels from the canal.

After the British were expelled from the Canal Zone- and later the entire nation- the British joined the US in refusing to lend Egypt the funds to build the Aswan High Dam. In response Nasser nationalized the canal and combined the income from the canal with a loan from the former Soviet Union to construct the dam.

On  October 29, 1956, after several border clashes, Israel invaded Egypt. Great Britain and France then attacked Egypt a week later in an attempt to restore international control over the canal. After the United Nations interventions, the canal was reopened in 1957 under Egyptian management and was policed by the UN. It was closed again by sunken ships in 1967 during the Arab-Israeli war and didn't reopen until 1975.

This area has been the site of much conflict. As we have listened to guides in Cyprus and Israel you see how many struggles and conflicts there have been that were no doubt made worse by the arbitrary way the boundaries of countries were set after WWI by outsiders who didn't really understand the political or religious influences at play.

Nevertheless for us it was an interesting journey. We went south and then stopped at the Bitter Lake for about 6 hours to watch the north bound ships sail slowly by.

When we began again the evening was coming and the sunset was so amazing. Once again people were out in small boats calling out to the ship. Several boats had people singing. BUT the helicopter fly overs constantly reminded us of the political realities of the area.